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Tuesday, 16 May 2017

Getting in the picture {family photography with Katherine Millard} | Life

A few weeks ago, on a sunny Saturday morning, the girls and I met up with my sister and nephew T-Bear at the Royal Botanic Gardens in Sydney. It was an absolutely beautiful autumn day, not too hot, not too cold and not too windy. The sky was as blue as can be and we had a very good reason for being there.

After walking through the park to the restaurant in the middle and availing ourselves of the facilities, I saw a lady walking towards me smiling. This was Katherine. Our reason for being at the Gardens.

Katherine Millard is a family photographer I met via a FB group for Aussie photographers. She was holding some sessions at the Gardens and I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to take the girls in and get some lovely new photos of us together.

Most people wonder why, as a professional photographer myself, I would pay someone else to take photos for me, and the answer is two-fold. Number one is that it's much harder than you would think to get in the frame. Sure, I manage it sometimes, I set up the camera and have everything the way I want it, and then get Dave to push the button for me. But it's a pain in the arse. So is using the self-timer, there is lots of going back & forth and adjusting things, all to get maybe one decent shot if I'm lucky.

There's also the fact that as a professional photographer, I have a certain standard that I like, and so taking selfies on my phone just doesn't cut it all the time. Don't get me wrong, I have heaps of selfies with the girls, but sometimes you want something a little more special.

The other reason why I wanted to get some new professional photos is because our last ones were taken 3 years ago, and I think as a professional myself it's important to be on the other side of the camera sometimes so I can really understand how my clients feel when I'm taking photos of them. Their fears, their worries, their awkwardness. Being a photographer and taking photos of other people for a living doesn't make me immune from all those feelings.

So stepping out from behind the lens and my comfort zone is important in helping me relate to the people who are wonderful enough to trust me to take their photos. So when Katherine said she'd be taking clients at the Royal Botanic Gardens I said a big fat yes! I've admired Katherine's work online for a while now, so I knew she would capture some beautiful images for us. I invited my sister along with us, because I really wanted to not only get some photos of myself and the girls, but also of the two of us together with our kids, so we could give them to Mum for Mother's Day.

Katherine made the whole experience so wonderful, she was just as lovely in person as she is online, and I was instantly relaxed. I found myself forgetting to worry about how I would look in the photos and just enjoyed hanging out with the kids and Katherine and admiring the beautiful surrounds.

I am so in love with our photos, and so thrilled to have some beautiful, natural images of myself with the girls. It's also nice to have some images of the girls taken from another person's perspective, and to see them through another photographer's eyes.

Thank you Katherine for taking these images for us, and for making me feel so comfortable. These are images that I will treasure forever xx

Have you had professional photos taken before? What was your biggest fear before the shoot?